


it couldn't hurt

by bloodredcherries



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 13:11:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16388348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodredcherries/pseuds/bloodredcherries
Summary: Sorry your father’s colleagues tortured my mum and dad into insanity? Not exactly a brilliant thing to bond over.





	it couldn't hurt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [partypaprika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/partypaprika/gifts).



Working with Draco Malfoy had been a difficult prospect for Neville Longbottom to come to terms with, but the reality of the facts had remained: there was a dearth of qualified professors that were willing to teach at Hogwarts so soon after the school had finished being rebuilt, and Minerva couldn’t exactly turn down Draco’s offer to be employed as the school’s Potions Master just because of a childhood rivalry that she strongly suggested both of the young men work to overcome. Draco needed a job, Neville needed a job, and he supposed that Professor McGonagall had a point. How was he meant to teach students how to grow and mature into adult Witches and Wizards, when he himself was content to nurse along a childhood grudge well into adulthood? It would have been hypocritical. And if Harry believed that Draco deserved a chance to re-integrate himself into Wizarding Society -- that Draco’s behaviour had been under duress, and that he deserved a chance to prove that he was worthy of acceptance by his peers, those who hadn’t been followers of He Who Must Not Be Named -- well, who was Neville to discount his friend’s judgement? 

 

So, as typical for Neville Longbottom, he’d accepted his new colleague with cautious -- yet open -- arms, and developed a tentative friendship with him. Well, Neville reckoned that it was a friendship, though he wasn’t entirely certain if it wasn’t a friendship that had an expiry date. Neville wasn’t daft. He could be naive, but even he didn’t think that Draco’s parents (who had been exiled to house arrest in Malfoy Manor) would dearly approve of their son’s new mate. His own grandmother had been appalled at his decision to befriend Draco. But, really, what did he have to lose? 

 

The majority of Neville’s friends had gone off to their careers and settled down and done things the ‘proper way’. Ginny and Luna were both married to their respective significant others, and he was sure that Hermione and Ron were on their way as well, sooner rather than later. A brief relationship with Hannah Abbott had left neither party entirely satisfied. Truthfully, Neville was happier with his plants and the Hogwarts’ Greenhouses than he’d been living above the Leaky Cauldron. He’d had feelings for Hannah, sure, but he reckoned they were better off as mates. 

 

Which was why the situation he’d currently found himself in was confusing. 

 

Neville had expected his friendship with Draco to mainly be for appearance’s sake. It made sense, after all. The twosome had next to nothing in common and what they shared in common wasn’t anything to truly build a friendship on. Sorry your father’s colleagues tortured my mum and dad into insanity? Not exactly a brilliant thing to bond over. But, Draco had proved to be apologetic, and trustworthy, and appearances slipped away to an actual friendship that wasn’t just for the benefit of the staff and students. 

 

Lately, though, he’d been feeling as if he was one of the pupils he taught Herbology to, and counseled as the Head of Gryffindor House. Thinking of Draco made him feel bloody  _ giddy _ (which he had never really felt for any of the women he’d dated, not even Luna), and had turned him into an adult version of clumsy Neville from First and Second Years. The thought that he fancied Draco was something that Neville had discounted previously as utterly ludicrous. Now, though, he was wondering if he shouldn’t have given the idea such ridicule. 

 

The news that Draco had broken off his engagement to the Greengrass woman he’d been betrothed to had set a new wind to the confusing feelings that Neville held in his heart. He wasn’t sure how to read the news. And he didn’t want to set himself up for an utter failure. But he wanted to try. At the very least, Draco would need a friend. 

 

And if Neville wanted to become more than that? He would see how things went. He wasn’t foolish. 

 

Still. 

 

Sending the owl wouldn’t hurt. 

  
And the Ministry's Halloween Ball was the perfect excuse. 


End file.
